Day 8 Fun! Fun! Fun!

For my last full day in Cape Town I decided to do something I have never done before and have always longed to do.  This was to dive with the king of the sea the Great White Shark.  I found a highly trained diving instructor on the internet.  In case you are ever in Cape Town and want to do this here is the website http://www.africadiver.com/. For the first half of the day I had to become licensed in scuba diving  and then the fun began on the last half of the day.  We rode out into the sea a little ways and then I was dropped into a steel cage in the water.  Inside the cage I had tons of different sharks swim right next to me.  The best was when the Great White bumped into my cage.  It was the adrenaline rush of a lifetime.  It was a long day but well worth it.

Video on World Design Capital 2014, Cape Town

Day 7 World Design Capital

Today I had the privilege of visiting the area where the Galvin Young sculpture is located.  This sculpture along with the buildings surrounded it are the main reason why Cape Town may receive the award of World Design Capital 2014.  They should know in a matter of hours if they receive the award or not.  Cape Town is competing with two other popular cities: Dublin, Ireland and Bilbao, Spain.  Executive Mayor of Cape Town, Patricia de Lille is in Taipei waiting on the official announcement of the winning city.  A very informative website that provides information on the award is http://www.capetown.gov.za/en/Pages/CTgearsupforWorldDesignCapitalannouncementasdelegationheadstoTaipei.aspx A picture of the Galvin Young sculpture and its surroundings is attached as well.

Day 6 Cape Town Government

Today I decided to learn about the government in South Africa and how Cape Town affects it.  I learned that South Africa actually has three different capitals and Cape Town is one of them.  Cape Town is the legislative capital of South Africa and holds the Parliament of the country.  I found the way they do their government very interesting.  I also had the privilege of visiting the actual city hall where all of South Africa's legislation takes place.

Day 5 Tourist Attractions

I was kind of tired of visiting engineering places, so I decided to visit two famous tourist attractions.  I toured the top two tourist attractions in Cape Town.  They were Kruger National Park and Table Mountain. The weather was great and these attractions were magnificent.  Kruger National Park is the largest game reserve in South Africa.  I saw zebras, lions, elephants and many other beautiful animals.  Here is a picture of one of the lions I saw on the reserve.

After seeing Kruger National Park I headed over to Table Mountain.  Engineers in South Africa built a cable with revolving cars to take you to the top of the mountain.  It was a awesome view at the top because you could see the city and the beautiful waterfront.  After coming down off the mountain I visited the waterfront to conclude my day.  The waterfront is beautiful at night, which is shown in my picture.  In the background is Table Mountain.

Day 4 Coolest Telescopes in the World

Today I chose to drive a little north of Cape Town to visit one of the coolest engineering projects in all of Africa.  It was called the MeerKat  engineering offices.  Here they have built a ton of huge satellite dishes to examine space from a whole new perspective.  There are 64 dishes spread out and these dishes take high definition pictures of satellites and other things out in space. Their website provides much more detailed facts about their engineering offices.http://www.ska.ac.za/index.php It was awesome visiting this place especially if your interested in any kind of engineering field.

Day 3 University of Cape Town

After a long day hanging out with the Sutherland engineers today I decided to take a trip to the University of Cape Town to check out their electrical engineering department.  I spoke with Barry Downing, who is a professor and head of the department at the university.  He informed me that their department had about 500 students and about 180 postgraduate students.  This is huge compared to an American university.  He informed me their program is very good and graduates many electrical engineers each year.  A link to the website is http://www.ee.uct.ac.za/ if you are more interested.